Category: theatre

“Now is as good a time as any to trot out the familiar lament — I mean observation — that Times Square, and the Broadway theater that is for good and ill geographically and thus atmospherically linked to it, has become a big old Big Apple-themed theme park that happens to be in New York.” And as Broadway’s neighborhood has changed, so has Broadway theatregoing.

Ontario’s Stratford Festival ended the year in the black, but saw its box office slip to 528,000. “The festival has yet to surpass the 600,000 attendance mark since 2003, a year that saw the SARS crisis, the blackout and the start of the war in Iraq.”

“This year singing shows have been the West End’s theatrical success story. Straight theatre productions have closed early but musicals are booked up way into 2007. Since the beginning of 2006 there have been 20 new musical productions in the West End.”

“The main advantage for writers is their internal ear – which knows the tune of how the lines are ‘meant to be’. This is also the great disadvantage. At every first read-through, all the writer can hear is the actors wrecking these rhythms. And the first instinct is to tell them so. The director’s (correct) instinct is, ‘Not now’.”

Brighton’s Gardner Arts Centre is a model of clever interesting programming, but it’s closing because of money worries. “Thanks largely to the experience, intuition and artistic courage of the venue’s programmer, Claire Soper, the Gardner has built a first-class reputation. It stands for all that an arts venue should be – risk taking, finding and supporting the next Mark Ravenhill or Peter Brook. Its loss will be a calamity, not only for Brighton and Hove, but for the UK’s arts industry as a whole.”

Dinner theatre is a special event in many small communities. “Today running a dinner theater can be a struggle. Production and royalty costs are high, and with new food and a different cast each time. The National Dinner Theater Association now has just 32 members, down from 48 two decades ago.”

Sleepy musical comedy The Drowsy Chaperone has recouped its full $8 million investment only 30 weeks into its run. “[The show] opened on Broadway May 1 at the Marquis Theatre and has been doing hefty business ever since, with recent weekly grosses topping the $1-million mark.”

Boston’s Huntington Theatre Company is losing its artistic director. 68-year-old Nicholas Martin, who joined the company in 2000, will hang it up in 2008, and assume the title of artist emeritus for two additional seasons. “During his tenure in Boston, the Huntington built two theaters in the South End and launched a play development wing. And Martin’s ties to New York and to Williamstown brought in a stream of both big name and promising young actors as well as national attention.”

“It’s got a cast of hot young things, plenty of sex, strong word-of- mouth, and the best score Broadway’s heard in years. Not since Rent has a rock musical had as much going for it as Spring Awakening does. What’s missing, however, is box office. Spring Awakening will open Sunday night at the O’Neill Theatre with well under $1 million in advance sales, a gulp-inducing sum for a major Broadway musical.”

A prominent Broadway actor has been arrested and charged with having sexual contact with a 15-year-old girl who came backstage to meet him in 2001. James Barbour, who starred in Beauty & The Beast and Jane Eyre on Broadway, has admitted to kissing the girl, but insists that it stopped there. “There was allegedly another incident with the same girl during a dinner at an Eighth Avenue restaurant, and a third in Barbour’s Upper West Side apartment, authorities said.”